Contemplate Quotes

The urge to make art or contemplate philosophy does not go away when you are sick. Those urges just become transfigured by illness. ~ John Green

When the contemplative mind is a French mind, it is content, for the most part, to contemplate France. When the contemplative mind is an English mind, it is liable to be seized at any moment by an importunate desire to contemplate Morocco or Labrador. ~ Agnes Repplier

I just kinda do what I feel. I never knew what lane I would fill, [or that] I would fill a lane at all. I didn't even really contemplate that far down the road. I just started having fun, and a lot of that came from me seeing Wayne dare to be different, and I started feeling like I can be a multifaceted rapper. I don't have to be a one-dimensional female rapper. Once I put that in perspective, it was like everything just got easier for me, because I no longer wanted to fit in anybody's box ... I just wanted to be Nicki. ~ Nicki Minaj

The equal and sustainable right of access to the Earth's bounty seems one of the most transcendent truths a human being can contemplate. Yet, this right is missing from the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The fact that this single principle is violated on an ongoing basis is quite possibly the root cause of many, if not most, other human rights violations. ~ Martin Adams

Egoism will be destroyed, if you constantly tell yourself, 'It is He, not I','He is the force, I am but the instrument'. Keep His name always on the tongue, and contemplate His glory whenever you see or hear anything beautiful or grand. ~ Sathya Sai Baba

It is a mistake always to contemplate the good and ignore the evil, because by making people neglectful it lets in disaster.
There is a dangerous optimism of ignorance and indifference. ~ Helen Keller

Forgiveness is greater than condemnation, and love stronger than hate. What is there left for us to contemplate?
-Reed Abbitt Moore- ~ Reed Abbitt Moore

A fighter cannot contemplate fear, let alone show it. Fear weakens you, gets you hurt. ~ David Powning

Being-in-the-world means that I am inextricably knit into the fabric of this fluid, indivisible, and contingent reality I share with others. There is no room for a disembodied mind or soul, however subtle, to float free from this condition, to contemplate it from a hypothetical Archimedean point outside. Without such a mind or soul, it is hard to conceive of anything that will go on into another life once this one comes to an end. My actions, like the words of dead philosophers, may continue to reverberate and bear fruits long after my death, but I will not be around to witness them. ~ Stephen Batchelor

After my husband died, I could not write much - I could not concentrate. I was too exhausted most of the time even to contemplate writing. But I did take notes - not for fiction, but for a journal, or diary, of this terrible time. I did not think that I would ever survive this interlude. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

You journey to Olympia to see the work of Phidias; and each of you holds it a misfortune not to have beheld these things before you die. Whereas when there is no need even to take a journey, but you are on the spot, with the works before you, have you no care to contemplate and study these?

Will you not then perceive either who you are or unto what end you were born: or for what purpose the power of contemplation has been bestowed on you?

"Well, but in life there are some things disagreeable and hard to bear."

And are there none at Olympia? Are you not scorched by the heat? Are you not cramped for room? Have you not to bathe with discomfort? Are you not drenched when it rains? Have you not to endure the clamor and shouting and such annoyances as these? Well, I suppose you set all this over against the splendour of the spectacle and bear it patiently. What then? have you not received greatness of heart, received courage, received fortitude? What care I, if I am great of heart, for aught that can come to pass? What shall cast me down or disturb me? What shall seem painful? Shall I not use the power to the end for which I received it, instead of moaning and wailing over what comes to pass? ~ Epictetus

But for harmony beautiful to contemplate, science would not be worth following. ~ Henri Poincare

We loved our son like the sea loves an island, always surrounding him with our arms, always touching him and crashing upon his shore with our care and concern. When he was gone, the sea had only itself to contemplate. ~ Yann Martel

I woke up dead.
Not only dead...but in hell.
I had always been somewhat sketchy on what the afterlife - were there actually such a thing - would be like for a person such as I. From all accounts and all my imaginings, I figured it would be one of two things. Either I would be surrounded by great, burning masses that were endlessly immolating souls in torment... or else I would find myself trapped within my own mind as a helpless bystander, condemned to watching me live out my life over and over again and powerless to do anything to change any of it. When idle speculation prompted me to dwell on these two options, I would find myself drawn invariably to the former, since the later was just too hideous to contemplate.
...
I was almost afraid to open my eyes, because once I did, I would know one way or the other. Perhaps I could have just lain there forever. Perhaps I was supposed to. Perhaps that was my true condemnation: to simply reside in hell with my eyes closed afraid of opening them lest matters deteriorate even further than they already had. This, in turn, made me dwell on the fact that every time I had believed things couldn't get worse, they promptly had done so with almost gleeful enthusiasm . ~ Peter David

When we ponder that vast throng who have died honorably defending home and hearth, we contemplate those immortal words, 'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.' The feelings of heartfelt gratitude for the supreme sacrifice made by so many cannot be confined to a Memorial Day, a military parade, or a decorated grave. ~ Thomas S. Monson

This is the LM pilot. I'd like to take this opportunity to ask every person listening in, whoever and wherever they may be, to pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past few hours and to give thanks in his or her own way. ~ Buzz Aldrin

The more I contemplate God, the more God looks on me. The more I pray to him, the more he thinks of me too. ~ Bernard Of Clairvaux

Now you might picture your next story, your second one, but don't be too definite, don't make a vision you might cling to, or create an idea you lose yourself in. Don't look at a map and ponder the depth of the Yellow Sea; don't imagine the shapes of its waves. Don't contemplate lost parents or lost girls. Resist the urge to explain their stories, because eventually you've got to understand that an answer isn't the same thing as a solution, and a story is sometimes only an excuse. ~ Nic Pizzolatto

I also came across the word neoteny, which means "remaining young." It's something which we as humans have developed into a survival trait. Other animals, when they are young, have a curiosity about the world, a flexibility of response, and an ability to play which they lose as they grow up. As a species we have retained it. As a species, we are forever sticking our fingers into the electric socket of the universe to see what will happen next. It is a trait that will either save us or kill us, but it is what makes us human beings. I would rather be in the company of people who look at Mars than people who contemplate humanity's navel - other worlds are better than fluff. ~ Anonymous

It's impossible to contemplate the life of soil very long without seeing its analogy to the life of the spirit. ~ Wendell Berry

The world should contemplate a nuclear weapons-armed Iran with the greatest of concern. ~ Daniel Fried

Just as little as a reader today reads all of the individual words (let alone syllables) on a page - rather he picks about five words at random out of twenty and "guesses" at the meaning that probably belongs to these five words - just as little do we see a tree exactly and completely with reference to leaves, twigs, color, and form; it is so very much easier for us to simply improvise some approximation of a tree. Even in the midst of the strangest experiences we will still do the same: we make up the major part of the experience and can scarcely be forced not to contemplate some event as its "inventors." All this means: basically and from time immemorial we are - accustomed to lying. Or to put it more virtuously and hypocritically, in short, more pleasantly: one is much more of an artist than one knows. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

We overeat because there are signals and cues around us that tell us to eat. It's simply not in our nature to pause after every bite and contemplate whether we're full. As we eat, we unknowingly - mindlessly - look for signals or cues that we've had enough. ~ Brian Wansink

To contemplate is to look at shadows. ~ Victor Hugo

Chili is much improved by having had a day to contemplate its fate. ~ John Steele Gordon

Contemplate the marvel that is existence, and rejoice that you are able to do so. ~ Ted Chiang

We have begun to contemplate our origins: starstuff pondering the stars; organized assemblages of ten billion billion billion atoms considering the evolution of atoms; tracing the long journey by which, here at least, consciousness arose. ~ Carl Sagan

Last reason for reading horror: it's a rehearsal for death. It's a way to get ready. People say there's nothing sure but death and taxes. But that's not really true. There's really only death, you know. Death is the biggie. Two hundred years from now, none of us are going to be here. We're all going to be someplace else. Maybe a better place, maybe a worse place; it may be sort of like New Jersey, but someplace else. The same thing can be said of rabbits and mice and dogs, but we're in a very uncomfortable position: we're the only creatures - at least as far as we know, though it may be true of dolphins and whales and a few other mammals that have very big brains - who are able to contemplate our own end. We know it's going to happen. The electric train goes around and around and it goes under and around the tunnels and over the scenic mountains, but in the end it always goes off the end of the table. Crash. ~ Stephen King

You contemplate and you wander without any worries, between heaven and earth, in your own private world, and in this way you acquire supreme freedom. ~ Gao Xingjian

You compose a question and then you just start walking. Concentrate on each step. Don't think too far ahead and don't think about where you have been. But consider closely how one step leads to another. Contemplate connections and links. Immerse yourself in the pattern. ~ Amanda Quick

It always grieves me to contemplate the initiation of children into the ways of life when they are scarcely more than infants. It checks their confidence and simplicity, two of the best qualities that heaven gives them, and demands that they share our sorrows before they are capable of entering into our enjoyments. ~ Charles Dickens

There is another more subtle way in which the innocence of childhood is lost: when the child is infected with the desire to become somebody. Contemplate the crowds of people who are striving might and main to become, not what Nature intended them to be- musicians, cooks, mechanics, carpenters, gardeners, inventors- but "somebody": to become successful, famous, powerful; to become something that will bring not quiet and self-fulfillment, but self-glorification and self-expansion ~ Anthony De Mello

The Frankenstein myth confronts Homo Sapiens with the fact that the last days are fast approaching. Unless some nuclear or ecological catastrophe intervenes, so goes the story, the pace of technological development will soon lead to the replacement of Homo Sapiens by completely different beings who posses not only different physiques, but also very different cognitive and emotional worlds. This is something most Sapiens find extremely disconcerting. We like to believe that in the future people just like us will travel from planet to planet in fast spaceships. We don't like to contemplate the possibility that in the future, beings with emotions and identities like ours will no longer exist, and our place will be taken by alien life forms whose abilities dwarf our own. ~ Yuval Noah Harari

The conviction that we have a treasure to share with others "has to be sustained by our own constantly renewed experience of savoring Christ's friendship and his message. It is impossible to persevere in a fervent evangelization unless we are convinced from personal experience that it is not the same thing to have known Jesus as not to have known him, not the same thing to walk with him as to walk blindly, not the same thing to hear his word as not to know it, and not the same thing to contemplate him, to worship him, to find our peace in him, as not to" (266 ~ Anonymous

We skim over the surface thoughtlessly. But we must acknowledge that thinking well is a time-consuming process. We can't expect instant results. We have to slow down a bit, and take the time to contemplate, meditate, and even pray. It is the only route to a more meaningful and efficient existence. ~ M. Scott Peck

There is nothing to do with men [and women] but to love them; to contemplate their virtues with admiration, their faults with pity and forbearance, and their injuries with forgiveness. ~ Orville Dewey

Here I am looking at my lovely ten-year-old daughter, Maggie, in her white dress, singing Protestant hymns with the choir at the Plymouth Church of the Brethren when I should be at Mass praying for the repose of the soul of my mother, Angela McCourt, mother of seven, believer, sinner, though when I contemplate her seventy-three years on this earth I can't believe the Lord God Almighty on His throne would even dream of consigning her to the flames. A God like that wouldn't deserve the time of day. ~ Frank McCourt

Anyone who is contemplating going to Afghanistan does need to think very carefully about the consequences, both to them and their families in terms of the grief they may suffer, as well as contemplate the legal action that might follow on their return, if they were to return, ~ Geoff Hoon

It was not easy to commit suicide as to contemplate it. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Life has a status in the physical universe. It is part of the order of nature. It has a high place in that order, since it probably represents the most complex state of organisation that matter has achieved in our universe. We on this planet have an especially proud place as men; for in us as men matter has begun to contemplate itself... ~ George Wald

It was exactly the sort of person, like Joan of Arc, who did know why women wore skirts, who was most justified in not wearing one; it was exactly the sort of person, like St. Francis, who did sympathise with the feast and the fireside, who was most entitled to become a beggar on the open road. And when, in the general emancipation of modern society, the Duchess says she does not see why she shouldn't play leapfrog, or the Dean declares that he sees no valid canonical reason why he should not stand on his head, we may say to these persons with patient benevolence: "Defer, therefore, the operation you contemplate until you have realised by ripe reflection what principle or prejudice you are violating. Then play leapfrog and stand on your head and the Lord be with you." Among ~ G.K. Chesterton

Crushed to earth and rising again is an author's gymnastic. Once he fails to struggle to his feet and grab his pen, he will contemplate a fact he should never permit himself to face: that in all probability books have been written, are being written, will be written, better than anything he has done, is doing, or will do. ~ Fannie Hurst

If we deny our awesome challenge; turn our backs on the living universe, and forsake our cosmic destiny, we will commit a crime of unutterable magnitude. Mankind alone has the power to carry out this fundamental change in the universe. Our failure would lead to consequences unthinkable. This is perhaps the first and only chance the universe will ever have to awaken from its long night and live. We are the caretakers of this delicate spark of Life. To let it flicker and die through ignorance, neglect, or lack of imagination is a horror too great to contemplate. ~ Marshall Savage

it was useless to divide it into months and years, and the days into hours, when one could do nothing, but contemplate the rain ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The two hardest things to contemplate in life ( ... ) are failure and age, and those are one and the same. ~ Ian Caldwell

If we start worrying whether our nose is too big or too small, we should think, "What if I had no head? - now that would be a problem!" As long as we have life, we should rejoice. If everything doesn't go exactly as we'd like, we can accept it. If we contemplate impermanence deeply, patience and compassion will arise. We will hold less to the apparent truth of our experience, and the mind will become more flexible. Realizing that one day this body will be buried or burned, we will rejoice in every moment we have rather than make ourselves or others unhappy. ~ Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche

There can be no greater antithesis than between the Greeks' rational and objective truth and the "truth of unreason," as Bertrand Russell aptly termed faith in religions, fictions about supernatural beings that soothe and comfort weaklings who are afraid to contemplate the grim world of reality. ~ Revilo P. Oliver

In order that the mind should see light instead of darkness, so the entire soul must be turned away from this changing world, until its eye can learn to contemplate reality and that supreme splendor which we have called the good. Hence there may well be an art whose aim would be to effect this very thing. ~ Socrates

If everything is clear and obvious, why do so many people disagree about so many things? What's really going on? ~ Joseph Deitch

The present is always unsettled, no one has had time to contemplate it in tranquillity . I was a painter before I was a writer and a painter never wants the subject right under his nose; he wants to stand back and study a landscape with half-closed eyes. ~ Isak Dinesen

You are, inarguably, one of the finest officers who has ever worn the uniform. You eat the impossible for breakfast. You seek out challenges most would never contemplate, holding yourself to ridiculously high standards, and you do it with a ready smile, keen wit, formidable intelligence, and a compassionate heart. You are a bloody beacon in the darkness, an inspiration to anyone dedicating their lives to Starfleet. To a man, those who have served with you in the past would walk naked through fire with you, but right now, I wouldn't follow you to the mess hall." (Hugh Cambridge to Kathryn Janeway). ~ Kirsten Beyer

Language is the element of definition, the defining and descriptive incantation. It puts the coin between our teeth. It whistles the boat up. It shows us the city of light across the water. Without language there is no poetry, without poetry there's just talk. Talk is cheap and proves nothing. Poetry is dear and difficult to come by. But it poles us across the river and puts a music in our ears. It moves us to contemplation. And what we contemplate, what we sing our hymns to and offer our prayers to, is what will reincarnate us in the natural world, and what will be our one hope for salvation in the What'sToCome. ~ Charles Wright

One jests because one wants to contemplate. ~ Plotinus

We want our delusions and will violently defend these when confronted. We want to believe that the job that is slowly choking us is good, because the effort it would take to change is too terrifying to contemplate. We never want to hear how badly we are being treated in a relationship because we are strong and how dare you suggest we don't know better. ~ Thomm Quackenbush

Places are part of nature, of the bigger picture. We are interrelated. When we contemplate them in their own right, they can sometimes change our lives; they can become spiritual experiences. ~ Etel Adnan

He was a devoted follower of the teachings of Epicurus - "that pleasure is the beginning and end of living happily" - although I hasten to add that he was an Epicurean not in the commonly misunderstood sense, as a seeker after luxury, but in the true meaning, as a pursuer of what the Greeks call ataraxia, or freedom from disturbance. He consequently avoided arguments and unpleasantness of any kind (needless to say, he was unmarried) and desired only to contemplate philosophy by day and dine by night with his cultured friends. He ~ Robert Harris

Such is their mutual antipathy that friends have observed that Diana finds her husband's very presence upsetting and disturbing. He in turn views his wife with indifference tinged with dislike. When a Sunday newspaper reported how the Prince had pointedly ignored her at a concert at Buckingham Palace to celebrate the Queen Mother's 90th birthday, she remarked to friends that she found their surprise rather odd. "He ignores me everywhere and has done for a long time. He just dismisses me." She would, for example, never contemplate making any input into any of his special interests such as architecture, the environment or agriculture. Painful experience tells her that any suggestions would be treated with ill-disguised contempt. "He makes her feel intellectually insecure and inferior and constantly reinforces that message," notes a close friend. When Charles took his wife to see A Woman of No Importance when he celebrated his 43rd birthday, the irony was not lost on her friends. ~ Andrew Morton

I pull her pillow over my face to breathe in her scent. It's torture, it's heaven, and for a moment I contemplate death by suffocation. Get a grip, Grey. ~ E.L. James

Legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties. ~ Thomas Jefferson

Look about and contemplate life! 1 Everything is transient and nothing endures. There is birth and death, growth and decay; there is combination and separation. 2 The glory of the world is like a flower: it stands in full bloom in the morning and fades in the heat of the day. 3 Wherever you look, there is a rushing and a struggling, and an eager pursuit of pleasure. There is a panic flight from pain and death, and hot are the flames of burning desires. The world is vanity fair, full of changes and transformations. ~ Paul Carus

He was hungry. IN 2014, in the richest country on earth, he wanted a little extra to eat but felt uncomfortable asking. Lord help us. ~ J.D. Vance

Could any mother amongst us even contemplate such actions? I appeal to all mothers here. ~ Margaret Anne MacLeod

When people truly open their minds, and contemplate the way in which the universe is ordered and governed, they are amazed-overwhelmed by a sense of the miraculous. When people contemplate with open minds the germination of a single seed, they are equally overwhelmed-yet numerous babies are born every day, and no-one marvels. If only people opened their minds, they would see that the birth of a baby, in which a new life is created, is a greater miracle than restoring life. ~ Saint Augustine

The man who has a library of his own collection is able to contemplate himself objectively, and is justified in believing in his own existence. ~ Augustine Birrell

I also remember it was Sunday night because that was the time I felt most depressed and vulnerable. Somehow have a moment to contemplate the miserable, low-paying week that lay ahead was more painful than living it. ~ Adam Carolla

According to Maslow, I was stuck on the second level of the pyramid, unable to feel secure in my health and therefore unable to reach for love and respect and art and whatever else, which is, utter horseshit: The urge to make art or contemplate philosophy does not go away when you are sick. Those urges just become transfigured by illness.
Maslow's pyramid seemed to imply I was less human than other people, and most people seemed to agree with him. ~ John Green

One does not contemplate it like a picture. The idea of contemplation disappears completely. Simply take note that it's a bottle rack, or that it's a bottle rack that has changed its destination ... It's not the visual question of the readymade that counts; it's the fact that it exists, even. ~ Marcel Duchamp

Chinese culture had boys memorize the Dao for centuries. Many cultures commit their sacred, foundational texts to memory.... When you read a hundred words a hundred times they get woven into your soul.... Understanding is not as important. When we struggle with a text, it changes us. Why put things in memory? ... We memorize to contemplate, not to show off. ~ Andrew Kern

SORROW
Sorrow is a call from God. It forces you to contemplate and get closer to the Self. ~ Sirshree

Before coming to the Black Wood, I had read as widely in tree lore as possible. As well as the many accounts I encountered of damage to trees and woodland -- of what in German is called Waldsterben, or 'forest-death' -- I also met with and noted down stories of astonishment at woods and trees. Stories of how Chinese woodsmen in the T'ang and S'ung dynasties -- in obedience to the Taoist philosophy of a continuity of nature between humans and other species -- would bow to the trees which they felled, and offer a promise that the tree would be used well, in buildings that would dignify the wood once it had become timber. The story of Xerxes, the Persian king who so loved sycamores that, when marching to war with the Greeks, he halted his army of many thousands of men in order that they might contemplate and admire one outstanding specimen. Thoreau's story of how he felt so attached to the trees in the woods around his home-town of Concord, Massachusetts, that he would call regularly on them, gladly tramping 'eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or yellow-birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.

When Willa Cather moved to the prairies of Nebraska, she missed the wooded hills of her native Virginia. Pining for trees, she would sometimes travel south 'to our German neighbors, to admire their catalpa grove, or to see the big elm tree that grew out of a crack in the earth. Trees were so rare in that country that we us ~ Robert Macfarlane

If there is any sea as blue as the Caribbean I have never beheld it, and when it is seen at twilight, it is most spectacular, but then you will hear more of this later, for I have had much time to contemplate the color of this sea. On ~ Anne Rice

As time rolls on, however, we discover that duty is a series of compromises; we contemplate life, regard its end, and submit; but it is a submission which makes the heart bleed. ~ Victor Hugo

A person can use personal meditation to awaken the mind, eliminate the wildings of the ego, and find bliss by living in accord with cherished ideas. I hope to forge a deep spiritual connection with family, friends, neighbors, and community and effectively and honestly to communicate and interact with other people. I aspire to discover empathic feeling of being "at one with the universe" including acting in harmony with all the people and wildlife that inhabit the world. I also aspire to be comfortable in aloneness, peaceful with only the eternal silence to accompany my heart song. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

He turned from the sight of human ignorance and human fate and the sea eating the ground we stand on, which, had he been able to contemplate it fixedly might have led to something; and found consolation in trifles so slight compared with the august theme just now before him that he was disposed to slur that comfort over, to deprecate it, as if to be caught happy in a world of misery was for an honest man the most despicable of crimes. ~ Virginia Woolf

The encompassing silence and the ease(or difference) of my companions have left my soul free to contemplate, to drink in the wonder of this place. How fitting it is that it should have been here that Moses heard the word of God! For here,where Man -if he is to live-lives perforce so close to Nature and by her Grace, I feel so much closer to the entire mystery of Creation that it would not surprise me at all were I to be vouchsafed a vision or a revelation; indeed it would seem in the very order of things that such an epiphany would happen. ~ Ahdaf Soueif

My life has been such a blur since I was 18, 19 years old. I haven't even had time to contemplate my own life. By forcing yourself to write your life story you learn a great deal about yourself. ~ Grant Achatz

When I contemplate the physical spaces that articulate the letters 'I love you' in a written text, I may be led to think about other spaces, for example the space that lies between 'you' in the text and you in my life. ~ Anne Carson

Contemplate the extent and stability of the heavens, and then at last cease to admire worthless things. ~ Boethius

The greatest gift ... is the realization that life does not consist either of wallowing in the past or of peering anxiously at the future; and it is appalling to contemplate the great number of often painful steps by which one arrives at a truth so old, so obvious, and so frequently expressed. It is good for one to appreciate that life is now. Whatever it offers, little or much, life is now-this day-this hour. ~ Charles Macomb Flandrau

What - in other words - would modern boredom be without terror? One of the most boring documents of all time is the thick volume of Hitler's Table Talk. He too had people watching movies, eating pastries, and drinking coffee with Schlag while he bored them, while he discoursed theorized expounded. Everyone was perishing of staleness and fear, afraid to go to the toilet. This combination of power and boredom has never been properly examined. Boredom is an instrument of social control. Power is the power to impose boredom, to command stasis, to combine this stasis with anguish. The real tedium, deep tedium, is seasoned with terror and with death.

There were even profounder questions. For instance, the history of the universe would be very boring if one tried to think of it in the ordinary way of human experience. All that time without events! Gases over and over again, and heat and particles of matter, the sun tides and winds, again this creeping development, bits added to bits, chemical accidents - whole ages in which almost nothing happens, lifeless seas, only a few crystals, a few protein compounds developing. The tardiness of evolution is so irritating to contemplate. The clumsy mistakes you see in museum fossils. How could such bones crawl, walk, run? It is agony to think of the groping of the species - all this fumbling, swamp-creeping, munching, preying, and reproduction, the boring slowness with which tissues, organs, and members developed. And then the bored ~ Saul Bellow

I went into a lather of misery watching them, and thinking of you, and how in the end you'll all be locked together, like the poor beasts that get their antlers mixed and are found dead that way, their heads fattened with a knowledge of each other that they never wanted, having had to contemplate each other, head-on, eye to eye, until death; well, that will be you and Jenny and Robin. ~ Djuna Barnes

Prayer helps correct myopia, calling to mind a perspective I daily forget. I keep reversing roles, thinking of ways in which God should serve me, rather than vice versa. As God fiercely reminded Job, the Lord of the universe has many things to manage, and in the midst of my self-pity I would do well to contemplate for a moment God's own point of view. ~ Philip Yancey

The only way to comprehend what mathematicians mean by Infinity is to contemplate the extent of human stupidity. ~ Voltaire

The fate of the humanities faculty in the burgeoning world of for-profit higher education is easy to predict, but painful to contemplate. Universities that, by virtue of their very mission, validate economic efficiency and productivity above all else also sanction apathy toward the humanities. (p. 97) ~ Frank Donoghue

If we seriously contemplate life it appears an agony too great to be supported, but for the most part our minds gloss such things over & until the ice finally lets us through we skate about merrily enough. Most people, I'm convinced, don't think about life at all. They grab what they think they want and the subsequent consequences keep them busy in an endless chain till they're carried out feet first. ~ Philip Larkin

She wanted to leave, she wanted to lie alone face down on her bed and savor the vile piquancy of the moment, and go back down the lines of branching consequences to the point before the destruction began. She needed to contemplate with eyes closed the full richness of what she had lost, what she had given away, and to anticipate the new regime. ~ Ian McEwan

The Europeans hate us because we've retired to live inside our advertisements, like hermits going into caves to contemplate. We sleep in symbolic bedrooms, eat symbolic meals, are symbolically entertained- and that terrifies them, that fills them with fury and loathing because they can never understand it. ~ Christopher Isherwood

On a personal level, I chose not to look at the eclipse but rather sat outside during it and listened and appreciated nature, instead of participating in it like a pop festival. My decision was based partly on belief but also I have to contemplate the mass production of glasses and how they will only be used once, polluting our earth with plastics and harmful metals. ~ Lorin Morgan-Richards

It is a great adventure to contemplate the universe, beyond man, to contemplate what it would be like without man, as it was in a great part of its long history and as it is in a great majority of places. When this objective view is finally attained, and the mystery and majesty of matter are fully appreciated, to then turn the objective eye back on man viewed as matter, to view life as part of this universal mystery of greatest depth, is to sense an experience which is very rare, and very exciting. It usually ends in laughter and a delight in the futility of trying to understand what this atom in the universe is, this thing - atoms with curiosity - that looks at itself and wonders why it wonders. Well, these scientific views end in awe and mystery, lost at the edge in uncertainty, but they appear to be so deep and so impressive that the theory that it is all arranged as a stage for God to watch man's struggle for good and evil seems inadequate.

Some will tell me that I have just described a religious experience. Very well, you may call it what you will. Then, in that language I would say that the young man's religious experience is of such a kind that he finds the religion of his church inadequate to describe, to encompass that kind of experience. The God of the church isn't big enough. ~ Richard P. Feynman

Rules and systems were created by people. And that awareness gives us the courage to contemplate how we can change them. ~ Adam M. Grant

Rage flared up in Tessa and she considered belting Woolsey with the poker whether he came near her or not. He had moved awfully quickly while fighting Will, though, and she didn't fancy her chances.
"You don't know James Carstairs. Don't speak about him."
"Love him, do you?" Woolsey managed to make it sound unpleasant. "But you love Will, too."
Tessa froze. She had known that Magnus knew of Will's affection for her, but the idea that what she felt for him in return was written across her face was too terrifying to contemplate. ~ Cassandra Clare

SPACES ... BREAKS ... TO CONTEMPLATE THINGS ... TO FIGURE OUT WHAT'S IMPORTANT ... ~ Stephanie Perkins

Conversation is good - you might not agree with everyone, but at least it gives you a chance to contemplate someone else's ideas. ~ Brandi Chastain

If you follow nature you will not be able to vanquish the tragic in any real degree in your art ... We must free ourselves from our attachment to the external, for only then do we transcend the tragic, and are enabled consciously to contemplate the repose which is within all things. ~ Piet Mondrian

Let us contemplate the humility of the Son of God born into poverty. Let us imitate him by sharing with those who are weak. ~ Pope Francis

In all things that I contemplate as I am consulting you, I find no secure place for my soul except in you. And in you, I pray that what is scattered in me may be brought together, so that no part of me may be apart from you. ~ Rubianne Wood

No funny stuff in here tonight, you understand?"
Dash said, "I assure you I could not contemplate any of your so-called funny stuff seeing as how I have no idea why I'm even here."
Mark scoffed. "You bookish little pervert."
"Thank you, sir!" Dash said brightly. ~ David Levithan

There is no need for particular speech in order to be with God. We have only to be quiet and to contemplate his love. In the silence, we look at God and let him look at us. ~ Robert Sarah

How do we regulate our emotions? The answer is surprisingly simple: by thinking about them. The prefrontal cortex allows each of us to contemplate his or her own mind, a talent psychologists call metacognition. We know when we are angry; every emotional state comes with self-awareness attached, so that an individual can try to figure out why he's feeling what he's feeling. If the particular feeling makes no sense - if the amygdala is simply responding to a loss frame, for example - then it can be discounted. The prefrontal cortex can deliberately choose to ignore the emotional brain. ~ Jonah Lehrer

I fantasize that our politicians have been moved by the dialogues of Plato, and thus contemplate the ancient conflict of the sophists versus the lovers of truth. ~ Daniel S. Loeb